Le iperscrutabili (ri)costruzioni sonore di Philip Jeck in un video che lo ritrae da vicino durante il concerto dello scorso 14 gennaio a Milano, per Inner_Spaces: https://www.ursss.com/2019/03/philip-jeck-inner-spaces

E a proposito di decostruzione e ricontestualizzazione, ci sono due nuovi interessanti lavori collagistici di Christian Marclay in visione a Londra fino a metà maggio presso il White Cube di Mason's Yard: "Marclay has said that his use of collage – which relates to a Duchampian notion of the readymade as well as to the experimental approach of Fluxus – combines visual recognition with the shock of contextual transformation. In these two new video works, his use of the collaged fragment allows for a shift in focus, redirecting the eye from centre to edge, downward to the dirty corner of a street seen from above or the very bottom section of a film frame, and relocating it as the site of chance encounter and potential narrative."

https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/christian_marclay_masons_yard_2019

Ma la più bella decostruzione del repertorio Residents al momento è quella dei cinque fratelli Minnick di Detroit, The 180 Gs. Gli anni scorsi hanno rifatto Negativland e Cardiacs come nessun altro al mondo - a cappella, una loro specialità - ma stavolta han superato ogni limite: l'intero Commercial Album!

Dice Homer Flynn: "The thing that's most impressive about the album is that the Gs are not merely imitating the Residents' masterpiece of minimalism, but reinventing it, while staying completely faithful to the source material. Like the originators, the 180 Gs are creating their own alternate musical universe, just as curious and original as that of the Residents".

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg296

Entra in uno dei primi capolavori dei Residents, Duck Stab (Ralph Records, 1978), e lo ricostruisce pezzo a pezzo a suo piacere: David Janssen, il Ted di Renaldo & The Loaf, riprende sigla The Darkening Scale e si inventa Stuck Bad (Klanggalerie, 2019). Niente male!

David Janssen aka Ted The Loaf (of Renaldo & The Loaf) started The Darkening Scale in 2006 when RATL took a longer break. It is a purely digital affair and its releases originally came out as downloads only. Over the past couple of years, Klanggalerie has released two DS albums: The Entomology of Sound and Sonic Archeology. We are now happy to present you Stuck bad, The Darkening Scale's cover version of The Residents' Duck Stab album as a beautifully packaged mini-album with Poxodd artwork. David Janssen has processed the original album digitally, he has rearranged and reconstructed it, and the result is a highly original take on this classic Residents fan favourite. We'd like to thank the Cryptic Corporation for support in releasing this.

http://www.klanggalerie.com/gg297

Per festeggiare i quarant'anni di Eskimo (Ralph Records, 1979) i Residents aprono i segreti archivi e rendono pubblico l'intero campionario dei suoi materiali sonori costitutivi - inclusi giochi di gola Inuit, rumori di caccia, canti di balena e venti dell'Artico - invitando a indagarli e magari servirsene per una propria personale versione dell'opera: Eskimo (Deconstructed).

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Eskimo The Residents present a unique collection of the album’s constituent parts, and encourage their public to remix and rework the album. Including over seventy individual musical elements, chants, loops and sound effects recorded on location by the group in the mid-late 1970s, plus a backing cd of Arctic wind noise, this remarkable set provides unprecedented insight into the three years’ recording and construction of a legendary album, and an opportunity for fans to “walk around inside a masterpiece, the viewing angles almost infinite”.

Conceived by The Residents partly in response to their satisfaction with the successful I Am A Resident project and their fans’ musical abilities, and with their own love of interfering with the music of their heroes in mind, Eskimo (Deconstructed) represents a first. Never before has a band peeled back the layers of one of their finest works in such microscopic detail, and made those highly intimate elements available to the public to re-interpret as they choose. Sure, it’s a classic, and this is undoubtedly sacrilege, but consider this a chance to screw with The Residents’ music just like they’ve been screwing with everybody else’s for almost fifty years now. Dig out your sampler and your turntables and dive in!

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-residents-eskimo-deconstructed-40th-anniversary

In ricordo del compianto Hardy Fox, scomparso lo scorso ottobre, si stanno preparando diversi omaggi all'interno - ma anche all'esterno - della criptica cerchia artistica dei Residents, di cui egli era una delle principali menti. Uno di questi prevede la compilazione di un album e la contestuale creazione di un sito web atto ad ospitarne i brani, associati a diversi materiali audiovisivi e testuali.

Così scrive del progetto il suo ideatore, Meisekimiu, aprendo a contributi di lettori e di appassionati: "This project is a way to celebrate Hardy Fox and express our gratitude for him and his art. The way I initially conceived this project (and how I still want the final product to be like) is that the entire album is a "web experience". When you stream it online on the site I'll be hosting it on, each track will be paired with text and/or visual art by the original track artist with their thank-yous to the late Hardy Fox. In a way the album itself will be a big thank you card to Hardy Fox, but each track will come with what is more literally a thank-you card. Of course, Hardy is not with us anymore so he cannot personally read them without spiritual intervention, but I still believe that there's something a bit romantic about creating a tribute like this, regardless if he can see it from the afterlife or we're making our expressions of gratitude into the void."

http://rzforum.createaforum.com/artist-projects/seeking-everybody-a-tribute-to-hardy-fox
https://meiseki.mew151.net/hardyfox

Klemen Breznikar intervista i Soft Machine (non più Legacy ormai da qualche annetto) per la sua rivista It’s Psychedelic Baby, e tra le altre cose racoglie il parere dei musicisti sul nuovo/vecchio nome. Etheridge, per esempio, dice: "We should have dropped the Legacy name much earlier. Hugh Hopper was particularly against calling ourselves Soft Machine as he thought Robert Wyatt would be offended… But really a band consisting of Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, John Marshall and myself had every right to call itself Soft Machine. Since we have dropped the Legacy there has been so much more clarity and I feel we are more connected and enlivened… So many people thought Soft Machine Legacy was a tribute band!"

www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2019/03/soft-machine-interview.html

E c'è molto Wyatt nel più recente episodio del programma A Montanha Mágica, il quarantunesimo, trasmesso martedì scorso dalla portoghese Rádio Transforma e curato da António Jorge Quadros con Luís Freixo.

A Montanha Mágica é um programa semanal de António Jorge Quadros, com a colaboração de Luís Freixo. Para dar à escuta músicas novas, alternativas, esquecidas, recusadas, renegadas e, sobretudo, impedidas; um espaço de pensamento amplo e arejado sobre música, artes, cultura e sociedade. Indo buscar o seu nome à obra do escritor Thomas Mann, A Montanha Mágica é um espaço de recolhimento, de encontro, de desafio, de contemplação, de intervenção, de sons e de palavras; por onde passam os mais amados, as músicas mais admiradas, os textos interpretados ou criados pelos autores e seus convidados; um espaço e um tempo onde todos têm voz, na medida em que permitam aos restantes visitantes o livre e pleno usufruto da magia da montanha.

http://www.radiotransforma.pt/radio-show/a-montanha-magica

https://www.mixcloud.com/RadioTransforma/programa-41

C'è anche un po' di Robert Wyatt nell'album Orkestra Digitalis di Future Pilot AKA, ovvero Sushil K Dade, di imminente pubblicazione - dopo lunghissima gestazione - per la risorta Glass Records. Il brano è Tutti Shruti, e ne viene consigliata salutare assunzione nella dieta di cinque porzioni giornaliere di dub. Almeno fino al prossimo 3 maggio.

Tutti Shruti features a unique postal collaboration with Soft Machine legend Robert Wyatt who posted a cassette of his vocals to Dade, who in turn created a dub landscape around Wyatt’s trumpet like motif. Synths, trombones, tablas and guitars come together to provide a launch pad for Wyatt’s vocal delivery wrapped in the hypnotic groove of Dade’s drum and bass. Think Sun Ra meets Lee Scratch Perry in Mumbia and you get the idea...

https://youtu.be/2xDXNq19liE

Kate e Mike Westbrook con la Granite Band prendono parte domenica prossima alla festosa kermesse musicale che apre l'annuale rassegna Jazz South a Bristol, presso la Colston Hall. Con loro altre cinque formazioni: il programma completo è in https://jazzsouth.org.uk

Kate Westbrook has toured widely throughout the UK and Europe, and as far afield as Canada, Australia and the Far East. She has broadcast on radio and TV and has recorded more than 30 albums. Her vocal range embraces Contemporary Music, Opera, Cabaret, as well as Jazz and Popular Song. As a lyricist and songwriter she has worked with composers in the worlds of jazz and contemporary music, notably with her group The Skirmishers in the album Cuff Clout, a neoteric music-hall. Kate works with the contemporary classical group Lavolta, with The Uncommon Orchestra, The Westbrook Blake and with Westbrook & Company in Paintbox Jane, a jazz cabaret about the painter Raoul Dufy.
Kate Westbrook’s The Granite Band based in South Devon, is inspired by her love of Dartmoor and its granite quarries. This recent commission conjures up labour, love and death in the vast Dartmoor landscape haunted by the absence of the curlew’s cry. Kate’s astonishing vocal range, and strikingly original lyrics are matched by Mike Westbrook’s genre-busting score and the outstanding and inventive playing of this new group.

https://tinyurl.com/y5nuh6gg

https://youtu.be/0JJU5D2KjC0

Buon compleanno oggi a Mike Westbrook: "Why not celebrate by listening to one of Mike's many albums. You can fill gaps in your collection by buying albums direct from the artist here: https://is.gd/8UTQpB".

Peter Hammill dal vivo, da solo, ancora ruggente: su YT c'è una ripresa pressoché integrale del suo concerto al Gagarin Club di Atene lo scorso 9 marzo. Chi cerca Refugees la trova come bis in conclusione.

http://sofasound.com
https://youtu.be/TUylFjegXIE

Hugh Hopper and Friends, cioè Short Wave, cioè Hopper con Didier Malherbe, Phil Miller e Pip Pyle, registrati in concerto all'Ouest de la Grosne in Bresse-sur-Grosne l'8 novembre 1991. Da (ri)sentire presso Phil Miller-The Legacy.

https://philmillerthelegacy.com/music/short-wave-bresse-sur-grosne-1991

Elton Dean's Ninesense dal vivo al quarto Bracknell Jazz Festival, nel luglio del 1978: ne ripropone l'ascolto Inconstant Sol. Con Dean c'erano Alan Skidmore, Marc Charig, Harry Beckett, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti, Keith Tippett, Harry Miller e Louis Moholo.

https://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/elton-deans-ninesense.html

C'è Caroline Kraabel tra gli ospiti del nuovo lavoro del Grand groupe régional d’improvisation libérée (GGRIL) di Rimouski, in Québec, e con lei anche Ingrid Laubrock e John Butcher: Façons, su etichetta Tour de bras. "I remember my experience of working with the GGRIL with great joy - scrive Caroline - they were creative, inspiring, focussed and responsive, and I felt the work we did made a difference to my practice as well as to theirs."

https://ggril.wordpress.com
https://tourdebras.bandcamp.com/album/fa-ons

Tra le più recenti iniziative del dinamico - e imprevedibile - collettivo londinese costituito da Blanca Regina, Steve Beresford e Pierre Bouvier Patron c'è una breve serie di incontri di conversazione e musica improvvisata diffusi in diretta tramite il web e successivamente archiviati presso YT: Unpredictable Radio. Nel corso dei due primi episodi, trasmessi dal centro d'arte contemporanea Raven Row in Spitalfields alla presenza di un ristretto pubblico lo scorso 15 febbraio e ieri 15 marzo, sono intervenuti Gina Southgate, Alan Wilkinson, Terry Day, Iris Garrelfs, Matthias Kispert e Douglas Benford.

Unpredictable Series looks at spontaneous music and art: the archives of pioneers and the creation of new works. We create festivals, exhibitions, performances, talks, publications and workshops engaging audiences in new ways of making and understanding music and art. Unpredictable Series was created in London in 2013 by artist & curator Blanca Regina and free improviser & composer Steve Beresford. Pierre Bouvier Patron later joined them, focusing on experimental film and performance. Current projects include Unpredictable Radio (live streaming sessions) and Strange Umbrellas, which presents unique events of experimental music, free improvisation, film and art, in London and elsewhere.

http://www.unpredictable.info/project/unpredictable-radio
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm631gX0AttTVrP25L9X_vA/videos
https://unpredictableseries.bandcamp.com

Uwe Bräutigam ha seguito il concerto del Lindsay Cooper Songbook a Bonn la settimana scorsa e ne pubblica una presentazione per Nrwjazz: "Die Band Lindsay Cooper Songbook besteht aus drei Mitgliedern von Henry Cow: Chris Cutler am Schlagzeug, Tim Hodgkinson an Klarinette und Altsaxophon und Dagmar Krause Gesang. Weitere Bandmitlieder sind Yumi Hara an Klavier, Keyboard und Harfe, Mitsuru Nasuno am E-Bass, Chlöe Herington an Fagott, Sopransaxophon und Melodica. Atsuko Kamura übernimmt für Dagmar Krause den Gesang, die aus gesundheitlichen Gründen nicht dabei sein kann. Lindsay Cooper Songbook besteht paritätisch aus Frauen und Männern, wie auch ihre Vorgänger Band Half the Sky, deren Namen nach dem chinesischen Sprichwort: Die Hälfte des Himmels ist weiblich, gewählt wurde. Auch Henry Cow und News from Babel hatten Genderparität. Henry Cow war immer eine politische Band, die sich als Teil der linken Protestbewegung der 60er und 70er begriff. Lindsay Coopers Musik und die Texte von Chris Cutler richteten sich gegen Unterdrückung und Ausbeutung und für die Gleichberechtigung der Frau. An diese Tradition knüpft das Konzert an."

http://www.nrwjazz.net/Lindsay_Cooper_Songbook_In_Situ_Bonn

Quando alle edizioni d'arte Æncrages & Co a Baume-les-Dames (Francia) si decise di ripubblicare in antologia i volumi del progetto MW con i testi in versione francese di Robert Wyatt e Alfreda Benge si salutò l'evento - che coincideva con il ritorno alle stampe dopo il devastante incendio subìto dalla tipografia nel 2007 - con una festa in piena regola con tanto di invitati, torta, candeline e champagne, con gli interventi pittorici di Jean-Michel Marchetti e le azioni musicali di Pascal Comelade con Gérard Meloux. Era il 7 marzo 2009, e il bel gesto venne documentato, oltre che in una specifica pubblicazione prodotta in pochissimi esemplari, Round About Robert, anche in video: da qualche giorno se ne trova un breve estratto anche su YT.

Quelques extraits pour ceux qui n'ont pas assisté à la performance de Jean-Michel Marchetti et Pascal Comelade "autour" des chansons de Robert Wyatt, le 7 mars 2009 à Baume-les-Dames. A cette occasion, le livre d'artiste à tirage très limité Round About Robert a été illustré par Jean-Michel Marchetti, devant le public, au son de reprises de chansons de Robert Wyatt jouées par Pascal Comelade (et son compère Gérard Meloux). Cet événement a été organisé à l'occasion de la sortie du livre Robert Wyatt - Anthologie du projet MW.

Éditions Æncrages & Co
1 rue Faivre d'Esnans
25110 Baume-les-Dames
Tel : 03 81 84 32 88
aencrages.et.co@wanadoo.fr

http://aencrages.free.fr
http://aencrages.free.fr/rub/fiche/art8.htm
http://aencrages.blogspot.com/performance-round-about.html
http://aencrages.blogspot.com/video-de-la-performance-round-about.html
http://www.disco-robertwyatt.com/images/Robert/mw/index.htm
https://youtu.be/8_qjKXerTjA

E uno sguardo a Robert Wyatt lo ha voluto lanciare anche Nadia Szachniuk, interpretando Lullaby for Hamza nel suo album notturno di un paio di anni fa, Luna Atrás.

“Luna Atrás es mi canto a la noche, mi oscuridad confesa en canciones desveladas, en seculares nanas y tímidos arrullos que empañan la noche de mis entrañas. Es la memoria de la canción primera, los días que son de noche y las ausencias que se arrastran como oruga ciega anochecida. Canciones que se cifran en lunas abriendo los ojos de las aguas nocturnas, sonando la noche del que canta y del que escucha. La noche vacila entre el sueño y el desvelo revelando los tesoros de la sombra”.

https://youtu.be/O_GKae71_kY

Marion Berthier e Xavier Vochelle sono titolari a Poitiers (Francia) del progetto Baron Chien, attraverso il quale guardano a modo proprio alle canzoni di Robert Wyatt. Le hanno raccolte provvisoriamente sotto il titolo RevieW, offrendone qualche esempio di studio e dal vivo in Soundcloud e Vimeo.

Formé de Marion Berthier au chant et de Xavier Vochelle à la guitare et autres bricoles sonores, Baron Chien s’offre un premier champ d’expérimentation musicale en s’immergeant dans l’univers poétique et nébuleux de l’anglais Robert Wyatt, ancien batteur/chanteur de Soft Machine. Un set construit autour de moments subtiles, d’envolées plus rock, d’atmosphères étranges et de surprises avec en point de mire son album phare Rock Bottom.

http://www.insuasso.fr/baron-chien
https://soundcloud.com/user-915835462
https://vimeo.com/310051315

Dal meteorite di Morozovo alla giornata della memoria per le vittime della repressione politica si dipana l'intricata trama di Novosibirsk, di Jane Ek. La colonna sonora è in un doppio cd prodotto da Alan Jenkins per Cordelia Records a nome The Melamine Division Plates, che il regista russo Sergej Aleksandrovič Solov'ëv ha definito "An important landmark in Experimental Surf Music". Tutto vero. Lo spiegano le note di copertina.

http://www.cordeliarecords.co.uk

Se già trent'anni fa aveva chiari i dubbi e le incertezze, tanto professionali quanto personali, circa il proprio futuro ('The future R. Stevie may well give up the fight', in Back in Time), nemmeno oggi, a sessantasette anni e con problemi di salute più che seri, R. Stevie Moore ha abbandonato la strada della libertà artistica e dell'autoproduzione, intrapresa con determinazione e tenacia fin dagli esordi. Afterlife, ennesima selezione tratta dal suo sterminato canzoniere storico - ma i brani sono stati fedelmente registrati ex novo in tempi recenti - ne riafferma tutto il valore: esce in due versioni in vinile e in cd per Bar-None Records, con l'aiuto di Irwin Chusid.

When R. Stevie Moore achieved underground notoriety in the 1970s, he was hailed as a do-it-yourself pioneer. DIY was a rogue subgenre of independent music in which artists assert maximum control over the creative process. Writing music and lyrics, playing all parts in overdubbed layers, engineering, mixing, Moore was a one-man music factory. Despite occasional collaborators and sidemen, he was too self-centric to be a team player. The outcome was (and remains) critical acclaim, but limited commercial splash. Not for lack of effort on the part of Mr. Moore.
His output slowed with age, but he continues recording because that's his raison d'etre. Afterlife consists of top-tier post-2000 recordings, eleven from 2010-2013. Some of the songs are four decades old; others were written relatively recently. The vintage songs were originally recorded at home in the 1970s and '80s, often on chronically malfunctioning open-reel decks with low-grade 1/4-inch tape. They were great tunes, transcending the lo-fi muck, and they begged to be revisited with state-of-the-art clarity. Afterlife is a survey of some of R. Stevie's best pop tunes, covering a lifetime of songwriting. A few were recorded solo, most include longtime friends and bandmates. From an audio standpoint, there might not be a better-recorded RSM collection, and every song is an idiosyncratic pop gem. For RSM, perhaps there's life after obscurity.

http://www.rsteviemoore.com/cd/afterlife.html

L'anello di congiunzione fra Henry Cowell e Vincent Price non poteva fornirlo che Eugene Chadbourne, ed è una storia lunga e personale: The Banshee.

"I have a personal defense of my use of Vincent Price material, as through my entire life I have promoted his work with a fervor and ingenuity few PR maestros could come anywhere near. This campaign has distinct periods. There is the "Cathechism class" era of the Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe films, as a growing number of drop-outs from the Sacred Heart Saturday morning Cathechism class would join me at the Boulder Theatre for our "Holy Trinity" of Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price. Shortly thereafter a fad broke out which involved yelling "Price! Price! Watch out! Price!" whenever danger was perceived or more likely faked, this came from his role in The Last Man on Earth.

When I was 17, my family moved to Calgary. A few months after settling in I wandered on bus (and then back on foot) to a movie theatre on entirely the otherside of town, (NW to SW) to see Vincent Price in the Abominable Dr. Phibes. It was still playing a month later and so I did the same thing again. Many of these fascinating exploits are chronicled in my book Dreamory. As a young father I shamelessly promoted Vincent Price with my children; now they are all fans. This circle will be unbroken so watch it, Price!

The Banshee is one of several selections from Henry Cowell’s book of solo piano pieces for which I have worked on creating guitar and banjo arrangements. Rob Magill and Daniel Masiel played The Banshee with me in an electric guitar trio during December of 2018. One night in we recorded two versions in Rob's garage on the outskirts of Ojai, California."

https://eugenechadbourne-documentation.squarespace.com/shop/the-banshee

Joni Mitchell fa coincidere con l'8 marzo l'uscita dell'album che ricorda i festeggiamenti dei suoi primi settantacinque anni, Joni 75-A Birthday Celebration, tratto dai concerti dello scorso novembre al Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles circondata da artisti e amici in una delle sue ormai rarissime uscite in pubblico: Brandi Carlile, Glen Hansard, Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, Chaka Khan, Diana Krall, Kris Kristofferson, Los Lobos con La Marisoul, Cesar Castro e Xochi Flores, Graham Nash, Seal, James Taylor e Rufus Wainwright. Ad esso si unisce idealmente anche la preziosa collezione in quattro atti concepiti per la danza Love Has Many Faces, curata personalmente da Joni cinque anni fa per la Rhino e da poco ripresa in una voluminosa edizione d'artista in vinile.

"Act One begins in the fifties. Two 15-year-old girls are standing front of a black burlesque show at the end of a mile-long midway. The music is seductive — jazzy — stripper music. They had been forbidden to stop there. “Don’t even look! Pass right on by!” In the background you hear the barker — “Step right up folks! The show is about to begin!” Rock ‘n’ roll is new and cars have given teenagers an unprecedented liberty. It continues into our materialistic and litigious times. Act Two is dark. It leads us into the perversion and corruption of these times until the wise little housekeeper, Hanna, lights the lamp. A healing begins. Humanity returns. The heart opens. The ability to love becomes a possibility. This act closes with an enchanted Night Ride Home. Act Three is the smitten act — the “in love” act until the imperfections corrode the harmony. This act defines what love is — ideally. Act Four is called If You Want Me I'll Be In The Bar. If danced, much of it would be a barroom setting — characters coming and going. Here, love of land, love of water, wanderlust, obsession, frustration — many “faces of love” appear and disappear. This act, the final act, has a warm and friendly ending — the dancers link arms and wish us all a lot of luck."

http://jonimitchell.com

L'incredibile storia di Vivian Stanshall scritta dalla persona che più gli è stata vicina, la moglie Ki Longfellow, e dalla quale, più che da ogni altra, egli stesso voleva venisse raccontata: The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall-A Fairytale of Grimm Art, con le illustrazioni di Ben Wickey, è finalmente un libro grazie a Eio Books.

"Vivian was a genius as Emily Dickinson was a genius, as Vincent van Gogh was a genius. All three were hopeless at being much of anything else. In her time, no one patronized Emily. No one printed her poems. Beyond her small insular Massachusetts family and one or two puzzled pen pals, no one had ever heard of her. In his time, no one bought what Vincent bled to paint. If they'd heard of him at all, he was the brunt of jokes. During his life, Vivian did a little bit better. He was revered by the cream of British musical talent, by its poets and painters and comics. Aside from these, and never more than a respectable number of fans, he was "Vivian who"?
The book I've written for him is not a biography of one of Britain's greatest 20th Century artists nor is it a piecing together of its most unusual band clamoring away in the midst of rock and roll. It's not even a small bittersweet memoir of our life together... although it has become a little of each in the writing. I saw as the words fell together on the page, Vivian's life was beautiful, dark and strange, a Grimm fairytale of art. With laughs."

http://www.theillustratedvivianstanshall.com
https://youtu.be/Q7TD8K0pFG4

Mike Westbrook parla con Emma Smith dell'album Catania (Westbrook Records, 2018) all'interno della più recente puntata di Jazz Now, per Radio 3 della BBC: un intervento di una ventina di minuti verso lo scadere della prima ora del programma, con ascolti da I.D.M.A.T., Tender Love e Factotum al Bebop.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002zjc
http://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/mikewestbrook/catania_cd.shtml

Quattro concerti per ritrovare dal vivo le care musiche di Lindsay Cooper: a Canterbury, Londra, Bonn e Münster, dal 7 al 10 marzo, proposte dal Lindsay Cooper Songbook (Yumi Hara, Chlöe Herington, Atsuko Kamura, Mitsuru Nasuno, Tim Hodgkinson, Chris Cutler).

Die britische Künstlerin Lindsay Cooper hat mit Fagott und Neuer Musik den experimentellen Rock der 70er aufgemischt. Schon eine Leistung für sich! Sie hat in Kult-Bands wie Henry Cow oder National Health gespielt und etliche Soundtracks komponiert. War Mitbegründerin der Feminist Improvising Group und leitete ihre eigenen Projekte Music for Films und Oh Moscow. Wegen schwerer Krankheit konnte diese solitäre Grenzgängerin zwischen Klassik, Rock und Jazz allerdings seit den 90ern nicht mehr auftreten. Sie starb 2013. In der Folge hat die in London lebende Japanerin Yumi Hara das Ensemble Half the Sky gegründet. Mit dem Ziel, Coopers Werke (viele davon niemals im Konzert aufgeführt!) lebendig zu halten. Für die erkrankte Dagmar Krause steht beim Konzert im Pumpenhaus die japanische Ausnahmesängerin Atsuko Kamura auf der Bühne. Und mit Tim Hodgkinson ist jetzt noch ein weiterer Wegbegleiter aus der Band Henry Cow am Start. Das Lindsay Cooper Songbook wartet auf Endeckung!

http://www.yumiharacawkwell.co.uk/HTML/HalftheSky.html

Dagli archivi storici della rivista statunitense Cadence spunta un'intervista a Lindsay Cooper condotta da Dale Smoak nell'ottobre 1989, pochi giorni prima della presentazione di Oh Moscow al Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, concerto poi divenuto album ufficiale per l'etichetta Victo (1991).

https://tinyurl.com/y3zgdlph

We're All In It Together: è l'affettuoso omaggio di Luciano Margorani a Lindsay Cooper, offerto qualche giorno fa tramite Soundcloud. Da risentire oggi, che sarebbe il suo compleanno. Ciao Lindsay!

https://soundcloud.com/luciano-margorani/were-all-in-it-together-dedicated-to-lindsay-cooper

Dave Newhouse è protagonista a distanza anche di un altro progetto, Told, condiviso con Tommaso Leddi, Davide Mezzatesta - alias Olga Gacano, qui la O dell'acronimo - e Luciano Margorani: l'album omonimo esce in questi giorni in digitale per la palermitana Sasime Records, diffuso tramite Bandcamp.

https://sasimerecords.bandcamp.com/album/told

Un omaggio a Robert Wyatt (Zed He Said), un omaggio anche a Hugh Hopper e Soft Machine (Mini Hugh), ma soprattutto un omaggio alla migliore tradizione ('AmeriCanterbury') che a suo tempo seppero esprimere The Muffins: Dave Newhouse guida i suoi Manna/Mirage a una seconda ottima prova, Rest of the World, a pochi anni dall'esordio di Blue Dogs. Spiega: “When The Muffins broke up, I decided to start a band of rotating musicians that could express the old AmeriCanterbury sound that I thought The Muffins had been slipping away from for some time. Manna/Mirage is that collective that I hope is doing just that. The first album, Blue Dogs, consisted of half of the compositions (my pieces) that I removed from what was another Muffins album in progress. This second Manna/Mirage album, Rest of the World, is an album all on its own, not culled from another project, and a continuation of that AmeriCanterbury sound that I so love. The musicians, engineers, and artists that make up the Manna/Mirage “collective” (including Gonzalo Fuentes / Guerilla Graphics, Eric Kearns, and Mike Potter at Orion Studios), are all part of a unique and close national and international Independent Music Community on FB. Many of us have never met in person, but we feel like a very close knit “family”. I didn’t consciously set out to do this, but by the time I was almost finished with the album, I realized that I had most of that community on the album! Half of The Muffins are here (Billy Swann and me), all of Diratz (Carla Diratz, Bret Hart, and me), and all of Moon Men (Jerry King, William Jungwirth, Bret, and me) as well as Guy Segers from Univers Zero, Dereck Higgins, Mark Stanley, Sean Rickman, Forrest Fang, and Greg Segal. Three of the pieces on this album, “Catawampus”, “Zed He Said”, and “That Awful Sky”, were originally slated to be recorded as Muffins tunes before the band dissolved. “Zed He Said” is a tribute to Robert Wyatt. “Mini Hugh” is for Hugh Hopper and Soft Machine. All of it is the best AmeriCanterbury we can offer.”

http://www.mannamirage.com